1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pattern segmentation apparatus and a pattern recognition apparatus, and more specifically to an application in which a one-character area is to be segmented from a character string image.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional character recognizing process, it is necessary to segment a pattern corresponding to a character from a character string image. In this segmenting process, there are three main processes, that is, a labeling process, an overlap integrating process, a vertical integrating process (for horizontal writing), or a horizontal integrating process (for vertical writing). However, when two or more characters touch each other, or when two or more characters are written as incorporated into each other, these characters cannot be correctly segmented. Therefore, in the conventional segmenting process, the following method has been adopted to correctly segment the above described touching characters.
(1) A black pixel projection histogram (vicinal distribution) in the character string direction is generated, and the point of the minimum value is defined as a section point.
(2) The upper and lower outline of a character string is traced, and the point of the minimum value is defined as a section point.
However, some shapes of characters or the touching portions between characters do not indicate the minimum value of the vicinal distribution or the outline of touching points. Therefore, in the conventional method, there has been the problem that characters cannot be correctly sectioned at the touching point.
When the state of an image is not good, and when the image has a number of uneven portions in a pattern, a large number of section points are generated. Therefore, the entire system cannot be free from a bad influence of excess division according to a hypothetic verification.